62 JEROME CARDAN. 



the last of the ten years in which there was no 

 rector. 



We may feel assured, also, that the bishop and the 

 local magistrates, and his brother the town rector, did not 

 come in state to visit the new dignitary, and that he did 

 not go with due solemnity as a true rector ought to go 

 after his election to the cathedral, escorted by two 

 hundred spearmen, accompanied by the officials of the 

 university on horseback, and by fife-players, and whatever 

 else is noble. I even doubt whether they clothed him as a 

 rector should be clothed in summer robes of scarlet silk, 

 and winter robes of purple silk and hung the badge over 

 his back, covered with gold and precious stones. If all these 

 forms were properly gone through by the learned Paduans 

 in honour of the young adventurer who undertook to 

 preside over them, that journey of the desperate young 

 Jerome, clothed in purple and gold, and surrounded by 

 spearmen, to the solemn hearing of high mass, would form 

 as odd a picture of times out of joint as any man could 

 easily imagine. 



That the professors and dignitaries of the university 

 came solemnly to dinner at Cardan's expense I can believe. 

 That the students flocked together to the great inaugural 

 entertainment he was bound to give them, and to any of 

 his other little official dinners, I am sure. Wild dinners 

 they must have been, for Jerome looked back upon the 



